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This story resonates so much with me in so many ways. It speaks to the campaign of hatred people have waged in the name of “freedom.”

I’m not “mixed” not directly anyway, but my skin has always betrayed an “other” quality that kept me on the fringes and gave me a glimpse of the privilege my Caucasian brothers and sisters share.

Because I was interesting and exotic I got glimpses of what people say and how they behave when there aren’t any Niggers around. White friends, and I had a lot of white friends, would reach a level of comfort with me that transcended being a “cool Black kid” and often would speak to me or around me in a way that, ironically, showed that for an instant they didn’t see my “race.”

No, not every experience Shaun and I had lined up in a row, but some of the things I read him recall hearing make me cringe and take me back to a time when my identity was the most important, and confusing aspect of who I was. Unfortunately, in Trump’s America, I feel that way again. About being Black, about being Liberal, about being me. No one should ever feel that way but it is nice to know that I am not alone.

One of the things I missed in my first go round here that should have been obvious is the fact that having something in common with those who you oppose politically can be a bridge builder. In my wrestling with this topic and in speaking with gun enthusiasts and owners across the spectrum I’ve found that being educated on the topic of guns, holding, firing and identifying them, the political side of the debate is softened a bit.

There are people who I’ve met, mostly online, who think the idea of a liberal gun owner is ridiculous, who routinely make fun of the same liberals who they claimed were ignorant on guns and berate us for speaking about something we don’t know about. Yet when we do educate ourselves, and come around somewhat to understanding their position, they mock us still. Those people will never be reached, they have put up a wall against liberals and progressives as thick as the walls of their safes and no longer see us as people. There are equivalent people on the left to be sure, intolerant elitists who make fun of what they don’t even try to understand, I have occasionally been one of them and sometimes still am.

The bottom line is this though, we need to respect each other even if we don’t like each other and every single conversation I have with someone who does not share my values is made less difficult through a common bond, if shooting is that bond, in any form, so be it.

In the foreground this is Emmet Till, the young man, who in 1955 was brutally lynched and his body desecrated for what basically amounts to an alleged cat call.

A cat call that was just recently obliterated by the target.

This is Till’s destroyed body, which his brave mother and father insisted be on display. This is the human cost of believing that the dignity of a 14 year old boy was erased by his “race”.

This was 63 years ago. Within the lifetimes of at least half of congress and a good number of Americans.

And we expect no consequences from events like this. No memory of the butchering of a 14 year old boy because someone alleged that he spoke in less a way than our current sitting president has spoken about several women ON TAPE.

The killers were never brought to justice because of the same system that we have in place today.

63 years.

If you think that this kind of butchery should be forgotten and it has no relevance to the gunning down of kids that same age by that same system, I have no kind words for you, none at all.

“Based on recent behavior and previous statements, the North Carolina Republican Party is unable and unwilling to support the Republican nominated candidate for North Carolina House District 48″ – GOP chairman Robin Hayes .

The Republican party has been putting up with the precursor to this for YEARS therefore encouraging and supporting it. Chickens….meet roost.